Darkness and silence replaced the tumult, and I wondered if I was dead.
Then suddenly a brilliant light flashed, and I found myself standing on solid ground. When the light subsided, I saw that my guildmates and Nanaya were with me, and we were all standing before a massive throne. Seated high atop the throne was Kincaid, and at his side was a scantily clad Anna.
My heart leapt when I saw her, but then it sank just as fast when her demonic eyes regarded me with interest.
I instinctively felt for the golden orb in my pocket, and my hand slowly wrapped around it.
“You have done well, Nanaya,” said Kincaid as he stood and began to stalk down the steps.
I glanced at the succubus, but she couldn’t meet my gaze.
“I told you so!” Tweak yelled to me.
Kincaid wasn’t in the mage form that he had been known for when he was just a regular player, instead he was in the demonic form that he had changed into when he hacked the game and attempted to become a god. But this wasn’t the real Kincaid. This wasn’t Arthur Gaines. This was something altogether different; an NPC who thought he was a person, and one who surely blamed his imprisonment in the Underworld on me.
“You have earned your reward,” Kincaid told Nanaya. “Now take your place as my second bride.”
She sulkily strode across the throne room and kneeled at the base of the throne as Kincaid reached the bottom of the steps. Anna was right behind him and took her place at his side.
Kincaid raised a hand to stay his women, then took seven long steps that brought him to stand before me. We were eye to eye with each other, but I knew that he could change form in a heartbeat and squash me like a bug if he so chose.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said snidely. “You’re wondering how to get me to accept the golden orb in your pocket.”
My heart sank to my feet, and Kincaid saw it in my face.
“Nanaya has informed me of your intentions,” he continued. “And I must say that I am surprised at your ineptitude. Did the good doctor really think that I would fall for such a ploy?”
He hit me with a backhand before I could respond, and the blow took me off my feet and deposited me twenty feet away. I hit the floor hard and heard something crack, and a searing pain shot through my left lung.
I heard Trinity curse and looked up to see her lunge forward with her enchanted sword, but Kincaid grabbed it by the blade and snapped it in two with his beefy hand. He then cast a spell on my guildmates that left them writhing in agony on the floor.
With what seemed like the last of her strength, Kit shot a spell my way that hit me in the side and began healing my wounds. For her efforts, she received a boot to the face from Kincaid that snapped her head back and left her motionless on the floor.
“Don’t spoil all the fun,” he said with a laugh and kicked her again.
“Leave her alone you fucking coward!” I screamed as I pulled myself up.
Kincaid turned his dark gaze my way, and I unsheathed my sword and held it in an offensive stance. In response, Kincaid lifted his massive fiery sword and grinned as the flames licked his face.
“Now I shall have my vengeance,” he promised. “And once I have broken you, I will let you watch as I break your precious women.”
I growled and charged at Kincaid, and he met my attack with a lunge of his own. My sword was batted away by his blade and ripped from my hands, and an instant later pain screamed through my stomach as he impaled me on his giant sword and lifted me high into the air. With a jerk of his wrist he ripped the blade through my entire right side, and I fell to the floor in a heap of blood and guts.
Warning!
Health 7%
Kincaid loomed over me, and with the last of my strength I reached for the orb in my pocket.
Come on you bastard, just a little closer…
I had few options, but the one that came to mind just might work if I could get the son of a bitch to touch me. I was quickly fading, however, and if he didn’t act quickly, I might lose the ability to act.
“Now you see the folly of your ways,” Kincaid snarled.
“Fuck you, pussy,” I grumbled drunkenly.
He growled and raised his sword, but he stopped dead when I let out a baleful laugh.
“Too much of a coward to get your hands dirty?” I said mockingly. “Just like the little bitch that I remember.”
Kincaid’s grin turned into a scowl, and his eyes blazed with fiery anger. He reached down and grabbed me by the neck hard enough to snap it, but before he could crush my spinal cord, I uttered the words to enable the gilded orb.
A burst of brilliant light filled the chamber, and then everything went black.
Chapter 25
I opened my eyes and saw a forest of tall grass all around me. The pain had receded, and I found that my wounds had been healed. I slowly got to my feet and glanced around the meadow. Overhead, the bright orange sun blazed. Birds sang in the nearby forest, and sunlight shimmered on the big lake to my left.
“Where…where am I?” I heard a voice say, and I turned around to find Kincaid on his knees looking mystified.
I smirked and held up the glowing orb in my hand.
“You mean, where are we?”
“What have you done?” he growled and pulled himself to his feet. He was still in his demonic form, and he was just as imposing, but I no longer feared what he might do to me.
“You weren’t going to take the orb from me, so I used it on myself. It’s over Kincaid, you’ve lost.”
Kincaid looked around worriedly, then he spread his wings and flew into the air. I watched him ascend to the heavens, but he didn’t get far before he slammed into an invisible wall. He screamed in frustration and blasted the invisible wall with a churning green spell that exploded against the forcefield and blew him backward. Kincaid changed tactics and sped through the air to my right. Again, he hit an invisible wall, and with growing frustration he tried a different direction. As it turned out, our little prison was only a few hundred yards wide, though it looked wide open.
After trying but failing to blast his way out of the pretty little prison that I had trapped us inside, Kincaid turned his attention my way.
“Give me the orb!” he screamed.
“It’s no use,” I told him. This was a one-way ticket.”
Kincaid growled and streaked across the ground toward me with his fiery blade cocked back. I brought up my fire shield and braced myself as the sword slammed into my shield and sent me tumbling to the side. I rolled away and leapt to my feet a few feet away, unleashing a Fireball right in Kincaid’s face. He took the blow without flinching and stalked toward me, and I desperately hit him with a Magic Bolt, another Fireball, and Arcane Lightning, but nothing had any effect. He retaliated with a spell that shattered my fire shield and tore through my body like a red-hot cannonball, and I hit the ground and writhed in agony.
“I will torture you for eternity, you little shit!” He grabbed me by the neck and squeezed so hard I thought my eyes might pop out of my head.
“Get me out of here, or I’ll make you wish you were never—”
Kincaid’s threat caught in his throat and he looked at me wide-eyed. I didn’t know what he saw, but my body began to tingle, and a strange sensation swept over me. Then I saw what he saw. My body was slowly beginning to fade.
“No!” he screamed as his hand suddenly went right through me.
I floated before him as I continued to vanish, and I flipped him the bird before disappearing.
“Sam, wake up!” came Anna’s urgent voice.
I opened my eyes and found her smiling down on me. Ember, Trinity, and Kit were there, along with Tweak and Cecilia.
“What happened? Where am I?”
“Aeorock,” said Dr. Marks, and he came into my view wearing his priest robes.
I sat up in bed and rubbed my face, trying to clear my head.
“Sorry it took us so long to get you out of there, but we had to
make sure that Kincaid couldn’t follow you through the network,” the doctor explained.
“Then it worked? Everyone is safely back on the surface?”
He nodded, and Kit hugged me fiercely. “You did it, Big Daddy. You’re a hero!”
“Thanks to you, everything has been returned to normal,” said the doctor. “Kincaid has been quarantined, and everyone has been restored to their previous level.”
“You guys must be tired,” I noted as I glanced around at my guildmates. “I mean your physical bodies.”
“We’ve logged off and taken care of our real-world responsibilities already,” said Anna. “You’ve been trapped in Kincaid World for a week, didn’t you know that?”
“What?” I said, looking to the doctor for answers. “It only felt like a few minutes.”
Again, he nodded. “That is the nature of the in-game dimension that we put him in.”
“And Arthur Gaines? Is he still…”
“Yes, he’s still in a coma,” the doctor confirmed.
“Well, I’m glad nothing happened to him,” I admitted.
“That was clever what you did, and very brave,” Dr. Marks replied.
I shrugged. “It was the only way.”
“Yes, well, once again the corporation owes you a debt of gratitude.”
“Gratitude?” said Ember. “Sam saved your asses yet again, and you think that all the corporation owes him is a big thanks?”
“What do you suggest instead?” the doctor asked.
“It’s alright, Ember,” I said.
“No, it’s not,” Trinity butt in.
“Yeah, poor Sammy is paralyzed in the real world,” Kit said with that quiet ferocity that I had come to know and love. “I think he’s earned the surgery he needs.”
I looked from Kit to the doctor, and hope swelled in my heart.
Dr. Marks seemed to be deeply considering the suggestion for a moment, but then he glanced at me and smiled. “I think that perhaps it can be arranged, at no cost to you of course, Sam.”
“Are you serious?” I asked, and my voice trembled.
“I am. Of course, the shareholders aren’t the most compassionate bunch. But I think I can sell it to them. How would you feel about becoming the face of Rebirth Online?”
“What do you mean, like the spokesman? Poster boy?”
“You and your guild, yes.”
We all shared an excited glance, and Anna answered for us. “Hell yeah,” she said, but then looked to me. “I mean, right? That’d be awesome.”
“It would,” I admitted. “But we don’t want any special treatment.”
“Of course not,” said the doctor. “We’ve got a new expansion coming up, and I think that Heavy Metal Thunder would be the perfect guild for promoting it.”
“What kind of expansion?”
“We’re calling it Guild Wars,” he said with a grin, and I felt one spread across my face as well. “We intend to roll it out in a few weeks. But there’s a catch…”
“Of course there is.” Trinity rolled her eyes.
“I think you’ll like this one,” said the doctor. “You will all have to reach level 50 by then. We want you in the upper tiers.”
“We’ll have to grind our asses off,” said Anna. She offered me a wink. “But I think we can manage.”
Dr. Marks's eyes trailed off for a moment, and he swiped something on his interface to the side. “You’ve got visitors, Sam. Your parents.”
“Oh, can you guys give me a minute?” I asked everyone.
“Of course,” said Anna, and kissed me on the cheek. “I’m glad you’re back, Sammy.”
“I'm happy to be back. I missed you,” I admitted.
She offered me another wink and led the others out.
The doctor left a glowing orb on the bed, telling me to tap it when I was ready, and everyone filed out of the room. I straightened my robes and ran a hand through my spiky brown hair, and then tapped the orb.
Rather than a hologram, avatars of my parents suddenly appeared before me. My dad wore his thick-framed glasses, but that was where his usual attire ended. It must have been a rule that visitors appear in costume in game, because my father was wearing sleek silver warrior armor, and my mother had on the flowing white and gold gown of a priestess.
They both looked ridiculous in the fantasy garb, and I stifled a laugh when I saw them.
“Sam!” My mother’s face lit up and she ran to me with open arms.
I returned the hug, and she held me at arm’s length to look me over.
“Oh, you look famished. Please tell me that you’re finally done with this silly game. This is twice that you’ve been affected by one of their glitches.”
“Twice in less than a month,” my father put in matter-of-factly.
“I’m fine. Listen, I’ve got some great news.”
“You’re logging out of the game forever?” my mother asked with hopeful eyes.
“No, the corporation is going to pay for the surgery to fix my spinal cord,” I said, savoring their reactions.
My mother lit up, and tears pooled in her eyes. Dad had a similar reaction, although trying to be the manly man that he so often portrayed, he turned from us to wipe his eyes.
“That’s just great, Sam,” he finally said and hugged my mother and me.
“We’re so proud of you, Sam. And we’re so happy that we’ll finally have you back,” mother said happily. “Now you can finish college, get a great job, maybe even get married and have children.”
“It’ll be nice to have you back in the real world, Son,” my father added.
My heart sank when I considered what they were saying. I was ecstatic about the possibility of walking again, and having a life in the real world, but I didn’t want to leave Rebirth Online. I didn’t want to go back to college, I didn’t want a real-world job, and I sure as hell didn’t want to get married and have kids any time soon.
“Mom. Dad. When I’m healed, I’m going to spend a lot more time with you. But I have no intentions of leaving the game. I have friends here. I have a home. I—”
“A home?” my mother said, looking hurt. “You don’t intend on living at the corporate headquarters your whole life, do you?”
“Of course not. If the surgery is a success, then I’ll get a place of my own. I’ve got money from achievements made in game, and there is a hell of a lot more money to be made.”
My father dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. “The government is going to shut this disaster of a game down.”
“And if they do, the corporate will just start another one under a different name,” I told him. “Fully immersive virtual reality role playing games are here to stay, guys, and I intend on being a part of it.”
“We’ll talk about it more later on,” my mother said dismissively. “I’m just glad that you might finally get the treatment that you need. It’s just been such a nightmare for us since your accident.
For you?
“I know, Mom. But that’s all in the past. Let’s look forward to a brighter future.”
When they finally logged off, I joined the others in the other room.
“Dr. Marks, can I have a word?”
“Sure Sam,” he said, and joined me at the door.
“Sir, what happened to Nanaya?”
He furled his brow in thought. “I believe that she is still in the Underworld.”
“Why wasn’t she pulled out like everyone else?”
He shrugged. “She wasn’t down there because of the glitch, or should I say Kincaid’s meddling. She was already there when all this began.”
“Do you think you could do me a favor?”
“Sure, Sam, what is it?”
“I need to go back to the Underworld. I need to get her out of there.”
He frowned. “Sam, I don’t think she wants to get out.”
“What? Why not?”
“She’s the new Lord of the Seventh Level.”
“What?”
I couldn’t help but laugh when I thought of the clever succubus sitting on the most coveted of thrones in the Underworld.
“I’d still like to speak with her,” I told him, and he offered me a nod of understanding.
Ten minutes later, I stepped through the portal that had been arranged, and when I emerged on the other side, I found myself standing in the throne room where the final battle had taken place.
“I never thought I would see you again,” said Nanaya as she walked down the steps leading down from the throne.
I couldn’t help but smile. “Congratulations on your new title,” I told her as she came to stand before me.
She bit her bottom lip, and it looked hard for her to meet my gaze. “Sam, I’m sorry. I didn’t have a choice…”
“I don’t blame you, Nanaya.”
“You don’t?”
“No, besides, I was onto you long before you were exposed by Kincaid.”
“And the others?”
I shrugged. “I haven’t talked to them about it. Listen, Nanaya, you don’t have to stay down here. I’ve talked with Dr. Marks, and he agreed to restore you to the surface world. That is, if you want to.”
“Are you nuts!” a shrill voice echoed throughout the throne room.
Frig came scampering over wearing a jester’s outfit, complete with curly shoes with little bells on the toes.
“She’s the friggin Lord of the Underworld, you moron. Why the hell would she want to give that up?”
I looked from Frig to Nanaya, arching a brow. “Well, she’s got friends on the surface.”
Frig scoffed and stomped up the steps leading to the throne.
“Friends?” said Nanaya. “Your guildmates hate me, you know that.”
“I don’t hate you,” I told her.
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